“Most drug offenders are white, but most of the drug offenders sent to prison are black,” said Jamie Fellner, a Human Rights Watch official and author of the report.
In 16 states, African Americans are sent to prison for drug offenses at rates between 10 and 42 times greater than the rate for whites, the report said.
Wisconsin, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, West Virginia, Colorado, New York, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan were listed as the 10 states with the greatest racial disparities in prison admissions for drug offenders.
In a separate study, the Washington-based Sentencing Project examined data from 43 of the largest American cities between 1980 and 2003.
The study found that, since 1980, the rate of drug arrests for African Americans increased by 225 percent, compared to 70 percent among whites.
“These trends come not as the result of higher rates of drug use among African Americans, but, instead, the decisions by local officials about where to pursue drug enforcement,
clipped from: www.commondreams.org 